Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:09): A supplementary question: does the minister accept that the onus is on him, as the responsible minister, to inform the royal commissioner about a change to the government's position?

The Hon. S.S. Marshall interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Premier, please! The Minister for Environment and Water.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (14:09): I absolutely do not agree with the position that either the deputy leader or Mr Beasley has been propounding over Twitter today. It is exceptionally interesting to me that a royal commission and the team around the royal commission cannot allow their royal commission report to stand alone and speak for itself and have to tweet from the sidelines—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: —and have to tweet in their own defence.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, members on my left!

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The minister will be seated for one moment, please. I call to order the member for Badcoe and the member for Wright. The minister has the call.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: Thank, you, Mr Speaker. I was just saying that I think there is a deep level of indignity in what we are seeing on Twitter today.

However, when we were negotiating—and that is what I was involved in in June at the ministerial council and in December at the ministerial council—we had a range of positions leading into those negotiations. We have been through this extensively yesterday. The position changed over time. It is no surprise because it was revealed here very clearly yesterday. That position changed over time because more information was presented to me from stakeholders, from departmental officials and also from the royal commissioner himself, because, as I watched the royal commission's transcripts unfold in June, July, August and September, the royal commissioner said at one point that, with respect to the delivery of that 450 gigalitres, you would sooner believe in fairies than see that delivered.

Senior counsel said at one point in the transcript that there was absolutely no hope—no hope, he said—of that 450 gigalitres being delivered. But they were making this comment, they were providing this commentary in their transcripts when assessing against the Labor government's standard, the Labor government's negotiating position.

So you have the royal commissioner and the senior counsel saying, 'Under Labor's pathway nothing is happening. It ain't working folks.' And I realised, as a result of many different pieces of advice, including from the royal commissioner and the senior counsel himself, that this was not working. For the royal commissioner to suggest that I should have provided my negotiating hand to him publicly in the lead-up—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: —to the ministerial council is nonsensical and ludicrous to say the least. I was not going to hand over publicly my negotiating position because that would give New South Wales and Victoria and the other jurisdiction an insight into what we were hoping to achieve.

Now, of course, we went through many years of the negotiating position of the previous government being vomited up into the public domain, in media releases, in campaigns and T-shirts and Twitter feeds, completely disempowering our state. What I achieved—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: —on 14 December 2018 was a historic pathway to water. Our pathway—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: —leads to water. Their political games, grandstanding and gimmicks—no water.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Before I call the deputy leader—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Unfortunately, I must intervene.

The Hon. S.S. Marshall interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Premier is called to order! The deputy leader will be seated for one moment.

The Hon. S.S. Marshall: 'I wrote to the energy minister.' Give me a break!

The SPEAKER: Is the Premier finished? Thank you. I call to order and I warn for a first and a second time the member for Badcoe. The member for Ramsay is warned. The member for Kaurna is called to order. The member for Giles is called to order and warned. The Deputy Premier is called to order. The Minister for Primary Industries is called to order. The member for Lee is called to order. The deputy leader has the call.